Hospital selection in emergency medical service systems: A literature review

Abstract

Emergency medical service (EMS) systems play a fundamental role in society by providing a vital service in initial emergency care. The purpose of this research is to present the first literature review of hospital selection operational decision within the context of the EMS system. The main findings were the following: The hospital selection problem is integrated with the location, dispatch, routing, and size of the ambulance fleet. The main selection criteria were closeness, hospital care capacities and the shortest queue or greatest number of free beds. The most used performance measures were the shortest transport and waiting time. Solution techniques include discrete event simulation, queuing models, mixed linear integer programming, and CPLEX and Arena software. The application of metaheuristics is scarce; mobile applications and Internet information systems have been implemented for real-time decision making. It is recommended that the design of hospital selection methods be implemented as well as the technological developments, considering the participation of the actors of the EMS system.